This Dark Endeavor

by Kenneth Oppel

  I scarcely had time to fling an arm across my face before I was engulfed. Vile fumes seared my nostrils and choked me. Something struck me hard, and I crashed to the floor, rolling over and over to put out the flames—but, amazingly, I was not alight at all. The flame had spent itself seemingly without scorching me. Coughing, I staggered to my feet and saw Polidori hurtling toward the elevator, bellowing and swinging his brutal cane to clear Elizabeth and Henry from his path.

  Fury obliterated my pain and exhaustion. I ran and, with a roar, threw myself at the back of his wheelchair. My weight tipped it, and it slewed wildly before toppling over, spilling Polidori facedown onto the floor. For a brief moment I almost pitied him, his withered legs thin and quivering as he scrambled to turn himself over.

  “Victor, he has the elixir!” Henry cried.

  Polidori’s back was to me, and I had to run around him to see that the vial was indeed in his hands, and he was pulling at the stopper.

  I lunged and knocked it from his grasp. In shared horror we both watched as the vial hit the flagstone—but did not break. Then I felt his fist slam into my jaw and drive my head back.

  With stunning speed he dragged his body atop mine, and had my neck locked in one powerfully flexed arm.

  “You will not deny me this,” he hissed. “You will not deny me the chance of being healed.”

  I writhed and flailed, but his wrestler’s grip closed ever tighter around my windpipe, cutting off my air.

  “Get me the vial!” he shouted at Henry and Elizabeth. “Or I will break his neck!”

  My injured hand plucked uselessly at his arm. My vision swam. My heart kicked violently, and suddenly a great weight fell upon me and—

  I had air, and gasped to fill my lungs.

  Henry, the poker gripped in his hands, towered over me. Polidori’s senseless body was toppled upon my chest. I pushed him off, and Elizabeth helped me to my feet.

  “Well done, Henry,” I croaked.

  “Have I killed him?” he said. He was trembling.

  “He breathes,” I said. “Where is the elixir?”

  Elizabeth held the vial up before me, and we all turned and ran for the elevator. Inside I stared at the confusion of dangling ropes and pulleys. I cursed myself for not paying more attention when Polidori had worked them.

  “This one, I think,” Elizabeth said, pointing.

  “Henry, your help,” I said. We seized it and pulled, but nothing happened. In a frenzy I began tugging at others.

  From the cellar floor came a groan.

  “He’s stirring!” cried Henry.

  “I’m sure it’s this one!” Elizabeth said, jabbing a finger.

  “You already pointed at that one!”

  “Yes,” she said, “because it’s the right one.”

  “It does nothing! Look!”

  “There was a lever or a brake he pulled first,” she muttered, looking around wildly, pushing at things.

  Henry’s icy hand gripped my shoulder. Polidori was lifting his head from the floor. I wished we had brought the poker. He glared at us. I had never seen such determination or malice. He flexed his arms and began walking toward us on his fists with terrifying speed, dragging his body behind him.

  “Try now!” Elizabeth cried.

  Polidori was not fifteen feet away.

  We heaved at the rope, and this time felt the elevator’s frame shiver and lift a few inches off the floor.

  “Again! Don’t stop!” I cried, for Polidori was very near the threshold. He lunged, his right hand straining for the edge of the elevator floor, but Henry and I gave a mighty heave and hoisted ourselves just out of reach. We heard his strangled curse of defeat.

  “He cannot get us now!” panted Henry.

  We kept hauling at the rope, but were so exhausted that we rose more slowly with every pull. My right hand was of little use, and the pain in my wounds was brutal. A rivulet of sweat ran into my eye.

  Even with the three of us, we could barely budge the elevator. How could it suddenly have become so much heavier?

  And just as I understood, an arm darted up over the edge and slammed down on the floor. Like some horrific white spider, the hand hopped about, and before I could dance clear, it fastened around my ankle and dragged me off my feet. I landed with a thud and grasped the rope for dear life, for I was being pulled hard.

  Polidori’s second arm came swinging over the edge and seized my other leg. Then his head lurched into view as he started hauling himself up my legs and into the elevator.

  I thrashed about, trying to throw him off, but his grip was so strong that I feared his iron fingers would crush my flesh to pulp.

  Henry grabbed one of Polidori’s hands and began prying his fingers off my ankle. Elizabeth kicked his head. But it was as though he no longer felt pain, as though his muscle and tissue would never tire.

  My grip on the rope tightened, and I noticed that as Polidori pulled on me, he also pulled on the rope, and so the elevator was still rising, albeit slowly. I looked up and saw we were not so far from the cellar’s stone ceiling.

  “Henry!” I yelled. “Keep pulling!”

  “What?” he shouted.

  “Raise us!”

  At this, Polidori looked up, and seemed to understand my plan, for he redoubled his efforts to clamber up me and into the elevator. His belly, hips, and legs still dangled over the edge.

  In three feet he would have to let go, or be crushed.

  Elizabeth kicked at him again, and he lost his grip for a moment, sliding down my body. I thought he might fall off altogether, but he grabbed hold of both my ankles. The elevator lurched upward.

  Less than two feet now to the ceiling.

  With a burst of preternatural energy and speed, he climbed up me once more: clawing up my legs, then grabbing at my waist. I bellowed and kicked even as I hauled on the rope with Henry. The elevator lurched up another foot.

  “Let go!” I shouted at him. “Or you’ll be severed!”

  “And you will lose your feet!” he bellowed back.

  In horror I saw he was right. He had dragged my legs over the edge.

  For a moment no one moved. The elevator was filled with the sound of our animal grunts and panting.

  “Then I will live without them!” I roared into the alchemist’s acid-stained face. “Henry, Elizabeth, pull hard!

  With all my strength I heaved on the rope. The elevator lurched up. Polidori tilted his face to the stone bearing down on him—and let go. The elevator, suddenly lighter, rocketed higher. I yanked my legs back, and stone grazed my feet as the gap closed before us.

  We were in total darkness now, for we had not thought to bring a candle or lantern. And for a moment we just sat sprawled on the elevator floor, panting raggedly.

  “We had best keep going,” I said. “He may have some way of summoning the elevator back to him.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” said Elizabeth.

  I felt her breath on my face, and realized she was very close to me.

  “You were very brave, Victor,” she said.

  I stroked her cheek with the three fingers of my right hand. I moved my face closer to hers, and our mouths met in the darkness. I felt her tears on her cheeks, and tasted their salt against my tongue.

  Abruptly she stood. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get to the surface!”

  From below came the sound of Polidori shouting and cursing. I could not make out many of his words, for at times he seemed to be raging in another language.

  “He wanted it for himself,” I puffed as we raised the elevator together. “He wanted his legs back.”

  “He never meant for us to have it,” said Elizabeth. “He just used us to fetch his ingredients, the devil.”

  Suddenly the elevator bumped to a stop, and I saw the faintest crack of light before us. The secret panels! Gasping for air, as though we’d been trapped beneath the sea, I stepped forward to throw them open.

  “Wait!” Henry whispered, yanking me back.r />
  “What?” I demanded.

  “Krake,” he said.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  NIGHT FLIGHT

  TENSED, I PUSHED OPEN THE ELEVATOR DOORS, READY for the lynx to spring upon us.

  The empty corridor stretched out in near darkness, with only a pale flicker of orange light coming from the parlor.

  “When we entered,” I whispered to the others, “Krake was before the hearth.”

  “Let’s hope he’s asleep,” Henry breathed.

  “Keep watch behind us,” I told Henry. “Elizabeth, set your gaze high; he is a good climber.”

  As we stepped out of the elevator, its wooden planks groaned briefly, and the sound seemed huge in the silent house. Once more I cursed myself for not bringing the poker or Polidori’s clubbed cane. Slowly we made our way down the corridor, pausing before the branch in the passage that led to the lavatory and bedchamber.

  I listened. I sniffed, in case I could smell Krake. But he was the predator, not me, and his ears and nose were keener than mine. I leaned out around the corner. The corridor was empty.

  We hurried on, past the closed kitchen door, toward the parlor. As we neared it, more of the room became visible in the pale light from the crackling embers. On the mantelpiece ticked Polidori’s clock. The time was half past nine.

  In thirty minutes the gates of the city would close, and they would not open again until five o’clock the following morning.

  We could not be trapped inside the city for the night.

  The elixir had to be taken within four hours of its making.

  Stealthily I moved into the room, far enough to see the rug before the hearth. Krake sat upon it, his back to us, looking directly into the embers as though mesmerized. His ears were pricked high.

  I turned to the others and gestured for them to follow. We could move past, behind the lynx.

  With every step I watched Krake, but all his attention seemed hypnotically focused on the embers. Halfway across the room, I heard something—a kind of hiss emanating from the fireplace. It took me a moment before I realized it was Polidori’s voice, carried upward to Krake through the chimney. I did not catch the words, and did not want to know in what devilish way these two communicated. With every step I took, Polidori’s voice seemed to get louder and more urgent, and when it stopped, the silence was like a sudden noise. The clock ticked, and Krake turned and stared straight at us.

  “Run!” I cried.

  Krake snarled, and every hair on my body bristled. I bolted for the door to the storefront and flung it back. Lamplight from the street spilled through the grimy shop windows. Krake gave another terrible shriek, closer now. We hurtled across the shop, threw the door wide, and ran headlong down the dark cobblestones of Wollstonekraft Alley.

  Before we rounded the corner, I glanced back, but I did not see Krake pursuing us. Still we ran, until we came out upon a public square where there was torchlight and people about—though mostly of the drunken sort. Here I stopped and bent over, breathless, my amputated fingers throbbing as though they were still there.

  “We will need the horses,” Henry said. “We must get back to your stables.”

  From across the city Saint Peter’s tolled the quarter hour. Fifteen minutes till ten.

  “We will not make it to the Rive gate in time,” I said.

  We were too far from my house. Even if we ran all the way, readied the horses, and rode full tilt to the gates, they would already be locked for the night.

  “What do you intend to do, then?” Henry demanded.

  “The river gate,” I said. “We’re no more than a few minutes away.”

  It was the city’s only entrance by water. But the harbor itself was sealed off shortly after ten o’clock. Two massive chains were strung between the two shores and raised to prevent any vessel from leaving or entering.

  Henry looked at me as though I were feverish. “We have no boat!” he said.

  “We will obtain one.” I was already running. “But we must get there fast. The wind is from the southwest. It will blow us straight to Bellerive!”

  Elizabeth and Henry followed, easily keeping pace with me, for I was much weakened by my ordeal, and fighting for breath. We neared the city’s ramparts, and on the broad street that led down to the harbor, I saw three guardsmen with torches, making their way toward the gates to close them for the night.

  “Hurry!” I gasped. Calling upon the last of my endurance, I raced on, streaking past the guards, through the archway and onto the broad quay. Creaking at their moorings, tall ships were silhouetted against the dark sky.

  I rushed toward the marina, where the smaller boats were docked. There was a great deal of activity on the wharves, as sailors boarded and disembarked from their ships. Those wishing to spend their night within the city walls had only a few more minutes to get there. Not that there was any shortage of company quayside for the sailors. Small braziers burned everywhere, and there were whistles and hoots and the shrill laughter of loose women. The three of us fit right in. We must have looked like urchins, me especially, with my sooty face, singed hair, and bloodied bandages.

  At the marina my heart sang when I saw a smallish boat newly tied up against a slip, and two fishermen hauling out their catch. I rushed to them.

  “I have need of your boat for one night,” I panted. “Name your price, please.”

  They looked at me as though I were deranged, until they saw my purse. I spilled a pile of silver coins into my palm. “Will this do?” I asked.

  They looked at each other, knowing very well that the amount was nearly the value of their boat.

  “Who are you?” one of them asked.

  “Do we have a contract?” I said.

  “You know how to sail her?” he demanded.

  “Indeed.”

  I put the coins into his hand and closed his fingers around them. “I’ll have her back by tomorrow night,” I promised, and stepped aboard. “Henry, Elizabeth, we don’t have much time.”

  There was a bit of bustle and confusion, for the fishermen had not quite unloaded their catch, and Henry and Elizabeth helped them, while I relit the beacons and readied the boat for sail.

  “Where are you bound?” one of the fishermen asked me.

  “Bellerive.”

  “You’ll have the wind,” he said, pushing us away from the slip. “If you get out of the harbor in time.”

  “Haul up the sail!” I sang out to Henry. “Elizabeth—the jib!”

  Even as they pulled the halyards, I was at the tiller, trimming the mainsail so she best caught the wind.

  “Mainsail up!” cried Henry.

  “Forward now, Henry. You’re my eyes.”

  “Jib’s up,” said Elizabeth.

  She was a fine sailor, a better one than Henry, and I wanted her in the cockpit, ready to trim the foresail for me.

  The moon was bright, mercy of mercies, silvering everything. I stood at the tiller, guiding the boat out of the marina and into the harbor proper. At its mouth a tower rose from either shore. Fires burned at their summits, making silhouettes of the watchmen.

  Within these towers were the giant winches which carried the chain that closed the harbor. Once, Father had taken Konrad and me inside to see the great windlasses. Five men were needed to turn the cranks and haul the weed-strewn chains from the lake bed. When the men finished winding, the chains stretched tautly across the harbor mouth, one three feet above the water’s surface, the other fifteen.

  Those chains were strong enough to snap the masts off much bigger ships than mine.

  In a moment we caught the wind fully, and I gave the order to let out more sail. With satisfaction and a quickening heart I felt our bow dig deeper into the water.

  In the distance a watchman shouted out from one of the towers:

  “Bear away! Bear away!”

  I held my course.

  “They are signaling at us!” Henry cried from the bow.

  I knew that in both towers the me
n were turning the windlasses—but I also knew we still had several minutes before the chains rose.

  We ran with the wind, the water churning at our sides. I set my course for the center of the harbor’s mouth, for it was there that the chains would be last to break the surface.

  “I see it near the shoreline!” Henry cried. “Victor, bear away! We’ll strike it!”

  I did not. “Elizabeth, mind the foresail!”

  She let out her sheet a few more inches, and I could feel it give the boat just a bit more lift.

  To either side I saw the giant links breaking the surface one after the other, soaring up into the air. If just one were to strike us, it would dash our hull to pieces—and us with it. I tightened my hand on the tiller. I would not stray from my course.

  We were nearly there, about to cross the line. Links shot up to the left and right, drenching us with spray and weed and lake mud. Closer and closer they came to our boat. Almost through, but not quite. I gritted my teeth. And then, not ten feet behind my rudder, the entirety of the chain breached the water like some great leviathan come up for air.

  “We did it!” Elizabeth cried.

  “Thanks to your fine trimming!” I exclaimed.

  Henry exhaled and shook his head, holding on to the shrouds for support. “I was not made for such adventuring,” he called back to me. “That could very easily have gone the other way, Victor!”

  “Think of what fabulous material this will give you, though, Henry,” I said, and sank down beside the tiller, utterly spent. The shoreline was well known to me, even by moonlight. In the distance I saw the dark outline of Bellerive’s promontory, and set my course. If the wind continued strong, we would be at the château’s boathouse within an hour.

  “The elixir,” I said, suddenly anxious. “Elizabeth, you still have it?”

  She drew it carefully out from a pocket of her dress.

  “It’s intact?” I asked, holding out my hand.

  “You don’t trust me?” she asked, with some irritation.

  “It will ease my mind to hold it.”